So, I’ve had in mind the last few months to do a great service to myself on cataloging and preserving my CD collection. It’s finally begun. The process is rather simple:
1. Burn CD-R’s of all music CD’s that I have. These copies go into my truck.
The reason that I want the burned copies in my truck is pretty simple&emdash;my truck is pretty easy to break into, and if I’m going to lose CD’s, I’d rather lose the copies than the originals. I’ve also noticed over the years that the most wear-and-tear my CD collection gets is when I’m driving. This is probably because I’m changing CD’s on-the-fly and paying more attention to my driving than to CD placement. If I’m going to screw up a CD, I’d rather it be a copy&emdash;I can always make another copy under fair use.
2. Rip all of my music CD’s to MP3 and store them on a file-server.
This file-server would be connected to my home network for personal use [i.e. not being KaZaa’d]. I’m not a mass-audience file-trader, and I’d never be one; if I do trade MP3’s, I trade them to friends who feel about MP3’s as I do in that they should be treated the same way as you treat physical media that you might let a friend borrow: if you like it, you buy it; if you don’t like it, you give it back and don’t keep a copy for yourself. That, to the best of my knowledge, runs under fair use [although the RIAA might disagree].
3. Create MP3-encoded CD’s for my MP3-CD boombox at work.
I don’t want all my music collection at work; because MP3’s can be smaller, I’m cool with compiling CD’s of like musicians. For example, I might put as many Blues Traveler MP3’s together as I can; I wouldn’t stick Caedmon’s Call on that same disc. I’d put Andrew Osenga, Derek Webb, and Sandra McCracken all together on one CD, because they are similar.
4. Create a MySQL catalog of all my CD’s so I can review them all at the song level.
That’s purely for my idea that collaborative filtering is a great idea; if you see that we both like a CD [and better, specific tracks on that CD], perhaps we have the same musical tastes, and you can recommend some music to me.
Right now, #1 in progress: my laptop hums away happily on the desk space to my left, burning the CD’s I’ve been able to find in my truck. [Note to self: you’re going to have to clean out the truck to find all your CD’s. Note to Todd: Shut your hole!] The burner’s only an 8x burner, but I’ve got all the time in the world for it to run at work, since I don’t need it to do anything else other than burn CD’s. I’ve got a 208-disc Case Logic case and a new detachable Case Logic visor case for the truck, and a bunch of slim cases for the MP3-CD’s [since I have some MP3’s on my laptop hard drive, I might be able to make some MP3-CD’s of like-minded artists while I’m sitting here].
Any other ideas or suggestions for stuff that should go into this project?
Not like I can say anything I haven’t seen or been in your truck in forever dude. Ofcourse I know you pretty well and I’m guessing there are CD’s in places in your truck that will never again see the light of day. 🙂
P.S. I don’t know if you got the message at work or not, but Happy Birthday yesterday! You old ass!
Yeah, I’m amazed at some of the stuff I’ve found back there … like papers from my freshman year of college. 😉
As for the message … I got it today. I got whatever wonderful virus was being passed around the wedding party this past weekend. Hell of a way to spend my birthday. 😉 Many thanks … but you’re still older.
That’s definitely the way to go. I’ve got several CD’s that I really and truly love to listen to, but they’re all scratched up after so many years traveling around and being listened to.
That or I’ve simply lost them.
I’ve wanted to do steps 1 and 2 for quite some time now, though everytime I go to rip CD’s I get frustrated and quit.
And happy birthday to you as well (sorry I let it slip) We’ll have to make sure you have a good time tonight to make up for being sick.
Hey, I forgot that it was your birthday, too.
I’m older than you again. Yay! 😉
As far as ripping to MP3 … I never have a problem doing it, but my collection is vast and my laptop storage is not so vast.
GFM
Tell me about it. I’ve got about 8 gigs of MP3’s on my laptop and that doesn’t even touch the 250+ CD’s I have in my Library. I need a 100 gig HD just for music. That would be nice.
Speaking of music I may need to see what you have Gee-off. I got roped back into doing music at the hockey games so I need to come up with some new Muzack.
Todd: you don’t really want the stuff I got, unless you want some Pearl Jam for games. Sean would be your better music bet when he gets back from Ireland next week.
Look into andromeda, it’s now a pay-script, but I obtained it before Scott Matthews decided to make money on it and as such it’s licensed ‘freely’ — anyway, it’s a great php script that allows searching and playlist creation. If you organize mp3s of CDs in an orderly fashion it’s the perfect compliment.
Sean and I’ve been trying to work on this for our own CD collection as well. Although, mainly, we’re just trying to get MP3s ripped off all of our CDs so that if they continue to get scratched at the rate we’re scratching them (same reason, changing CDs in cars does not mean they’ll be treated nicely), then we might not lose too many more of our CDs.
Tonight, I’m going to set my laptop beside my while I do quilting work and just let it rip quietly away at some more CDs. Too bad I can’t bring my laptop into work. I could have it ripping all day while I’m at work, too.
My desktop rips quietly to my left. I have a larger server that I can use to transfer files from work to home when the time comes. 🙂